Margaret Cho gets graphic in Lisner Auditorium

Comedian Margaret Cho held nothing back during a performance at Lisner Auditorium Thursday night.

Cho, who is also an actress, fashion designer and five-time Grammy Award winner, warned the audience early on that her jokes were going to get inappropriate – a sentiment that fans have come to expect at her shows. Nothing was off limits for Cho, including graphic jokes about the sex lives of everyone from herself to the president.

“I feel like we’ve got to get graphic,” Cho said.

Cho’s show benefited the University’s LGBT Health Policy and Practice Program, a graduate certificate program on issues relating to the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

If you missed the benefit performance, here are some of the highlights:

Political pondering
Performing in the District, Cho began her show cracking jokes about politics and was not aloof when it came to her feelings about President Donald Trump. She repeatedly said throughout the evening that she did not know how he won the election.

Cho said the videos leaked before the election featuring Trump boasting about his sexual past were what won him the Oval Office. Cho took a serious aside to call Trump’s remarks about women disrespectful and went on to joke about his Twitter feud with Rosie O’Donnell and his comments about his daughter Ivanka Trump, who he said he would date if she wasn’t his daughter.

Cho also took a firm stance supporting Planned Parenthood.

“For anybody who wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, I wish I could psychically give them a yeast infection because that’s what they deserve,” she said.

Getting into the details
Cho is known for not holding back during her explicit jokes about sex, and Thursday night’s show was no exception.

“I’ve had a lot of sex in my life,” Cho said before delving into the graphic details.

Recounting her own sexual encounters, Cho talked about everything from threesomes to the time she should’ve gone to the bathroom before having sex.

By the time the audience left Lisner, they knew about all of Cho’s sexual preferences including that she’s a self proclaimed “size queen.”

Coping with humor
Despite Cho’s hilarious stand-up set, there were serious moments. In addition to the graphic jokes about past sexual encounters that Cho has become known for, she also opened up about abuse from a former partner and being a sexual assault survivor.

“I talk about it because it is not that big of a deal to talk about it,” she said.

Cho added that she hopes that her openness will provide relief to other survivors who feel shamed and silenced.

Confronting Asian stereotypes
Cho’s stand-up included a mix of impersonations of Asian stereotypes and a firm stance against whitewashing – casting white actors in racial minority roles – in Hollywood.

Cho called out Director Woody Allen for his films’ lack of Asian actors and Actor David Carradine’s casting as a Shaolin monk in the TV show “Kung Fu.” She also expressed confusion as to why Matt Damon starred in a movie called “The Great Wall.”

“We’re not even in movies about Asian things,” she said, referring to the casting of Actor Emma Stone for an Asian character in the film “Aloha.” “Whitewashing has been going on for a long time and it’s very discouraging.”